This conference report discusses four viewpoints on the changing makeup of the family unit. Reasons for these changes in the family (i.e., communes, unmarried couples, unisex marriages) were seen as deeply imbedded in the philosophical, religious, psychological, and moral components of life and in the technological and urban civilizations within which contemporary life manifests itself. The four viewpoints, presented by a sociologist, an economist, a clergyman, and a psychotherapist, deal with the different perspectives of "Accelerating Family Styles." While the sociologist focuses on the importance of the interrelationship of family life and socioeconomic resources, the economist deals more specifically with the impact of fast-moving changes of the economy. The clergyman discusses the primary values which Americans have held in the past and suggests that life style is now emerging as the most important quality of a person. The family is seen as the fundamental social institution by the psychotherapist, but he points to the inability to communicate as the most crucial problem to any family life style. (Author/PC)